Transformers questions by newbies, and not-so-newbies

[Pulse]

Yeah, brand new batteries really wakes a TF up from its snooze...

(There was this one time where I hit the trigger when I was upstairs & I remember getting told off from the person downstairs... )

[Tober]

Anyone tried or seen a mod for removing the missile launchers from Leader Bulkhead?

Yep, this from a MacrossWorld member. He didn't post pics of alt mode after the mod tho, even when I asked

ask and you shall receive

with all kibble removed


just with missiles


just missiles again


"riot shield"


and here's a close-up of the hole the bits leave when you take em out. Big, but hidden away nicely on the back of the arm, so impossible to see from most angles.





and just for fun: Prowl on Prowl :P

[loophole]

I love my Shockwave too he's great fun, nice and loud too so i can annoy EVERYBODY with him

[King Atlas]

Soooo, the other day I was thinking about getting the Beast Wars "Sourcebook(s)". I looked around for good prices and found some. But first, I checked a few sites, and apparently it's not what it was ment to be (and by that I mean a disappointment). So my question is, are these worth buying or not?

[GoktimusPrime]

tbh... not really.

Items of notes and errors
(quote)
Art and coloring errors
* Blackarachnia's images are solid gold-orange and black.
* BB is similarly colored in nothing but gold-orange, with a little white.
* Dinobot's colors are based on the Beast Wars 10th Anniversary release of the Dinobot toy, minus the blue kneecaps and face. In the trade version, Dinobot was given completely new art for robot and beast modes.
* Gimlet, Lio Junior, Magnaboss II, and Motorarm are all incorrectly colored as their Hasbro mold-partners Sea Clamp, Prowl, Magnaboss, and Ramhorn.
* The hind legs of Magmatron's combined-beast mode are incorrectly colored as if they belonged to Skysaur, when they are actually the robot-mode arms from his Seasaur portion.
* All of the robot modes drawn by Frank Milkovich are drawn almost entirely mechanical, including all of the organic beast mode parts.
* Speaking of which, Milkovich's renditions of both versions of Rhinox, Scissor Boy, Silverbolt, Tigerhawk, and Tripledacus all have visible pencil sketch lines remaining. Additionally, Tigerhawk even has the edge of a comic draft page left underneath, as the word "issue________" can be clearly seen in one of his wing cannon barrels. Tripledacus has an edge guide corner visible in his foremost foot. It is conveniently covered by the IDW logo on the cover of Sourcebook 4.
* Ravage's "original" Predacon body has his Transmetal 2 head.
* Not really an error, but certainly bizarre: Scissor Boy is just a mirrored version of Powerpinch's art, with his minor detailing changed. At that point, why not just draw entirely new art?
* Silverbolt II has his beast mode head for a face in robot mode. His robot head is omitted entirely.
* Transmetal Tarantulas is colored in the black and white hues of his later "Fox Kids" repaint, instead of his original show-accurate colors. (actually the Fox!Kids colours were Tarantulas' colours after he was reanimated by the Vok power he'd absorbed, so it is canonically correct although more obscure - Gok)
* And why are K-9's robot mode parts showing in the undercarriage? (toy accuracy? - Gok)

Divergence from original sources
* The books consistently misuse the term "technorganic" to describe Beast Wars-era characters, when the term should only properly apply to post-reformatting Cybertronians from Beast Machines or later.
* Despite a stated policy to not diverge from the names of originally Japanese characters, some names have been altered, such as Elphaorpha to "Elephorca", Blentron to Blendtron, and Tasmania Kid to "Tasmanian Kid". The Ascending disregarded "Tasmanian Kid", but kept "Elephorca".
* The book makes alterations to the personalities and intelligence levels of a fair number of the Japanese characters. Understandably, the cartoonishly stereotypical "Frito Bandito" aspect of the Jointrons was dropped, but their core personalities stayed basically the same. However, there are numerous instances of fundamental changes to characters. Mantis, a cold-blooded killer, is described as a smiling friendly guy. Diver is no longer a skittish coward. Hardhead is no longer dumb as toast. Infinitely loyal Guiledart is described as an utterly distrustful schemer. Moon isn't even remotely comedic. Ben Yee is on record as saying these changes were intentional and designed to fit certain characters better into the overall feel of the merged Japanese/American Beast Wars universe the books were creating.
* Airazor's motto is listed as "She swoops to conquer!", but her actual line of dialogue from the episode had been "She stoops to conquer!" in "Call of the Wild", a reference to both the 18th-Century romantic Irish play of the same name and the hunting dive used by peregrine falcons (her altmode), called a "stoop" only in reference to that specific breed of falcon.
* Despite being Scuba's cousin in the original material, Sourcebook states that Ikard is his brother.
* The book contradicts Injector's original toy bio by saying he puts on a show of liking his beast mode, but really thinks it is ugly and he's ashamed of it.
* Magmatron's three individual beast modes are claimed to have "only loose connections to actual reptilian lifeforms", seemingly ignorant of the existence of Giganotosaurus, Elasmosaurus and Quetzalcoatlus.
* Ramulus is described as "even-tempered," whereas his toy bio and previous comic appearances portray him as a hot-headed jerk.

Editing errors
* The artists' credits sections in the front of the books have numerous inaccuracies. Notably, Dan Khanna is credited with numerous pieces he did not draw (Dan himself confirmed this), including Blackarachnia, Dinobot, Hardhead, K-9 and Killerpunch. Blackarachnia was likely drawn by Nick Roche, and the Trade Paperback version identified Simon Williams as the artist for K-9 and Killer Punch with Jamie Snell as the artist behind Hardhead.
* The alphabetical order of characters gets out of whack in numerous places. For instance, Scourge is absent from the third issue, even though it ends with Silverbolt, who should be many characters down the list in alphabetical order. He was included in the fourth issue instead.
* Characters are not consistently placed in subgroups. Drancron is apparently not a Blendtron, nor is Longrack a member of the Pack. The Trade Paperback version meanwhile neglected to list Autostinger as an Auto Roller. On the flip side, Scourge is given the subgroup Transmetal 2, in both versions.
* The entries of Beast Wars II characters are inconsistent on whether the factions are Maximals and Predacons or "Cybertrons" and "Destrons". The trade attempted to explain this by including different meanings for the terms in its glossary.
* Issue 2 has a disproportionate number of pointless and incorrectly used parenthetical asides and additions, and sections of sentence between dashes for no good reason. For example:
Hydra: "The trouble is, everyone-who's ever had anything to do with Hydra-knows what to expect..."
Injector: "...his ungainly new (Fuzor) form..."
* Gigastorm's "Abilities" section ends with a bizarre sentence fragment: ".. . built into its fists.built into his right arm."
* Not so much an error, but the first two issues feature cover images of characters not in those issues. Magamatron is on #1, but his bio is in #2, Torca is on #2 but in issue 4. (However, "Elephorca" is in #2, so it's entirely possible the art is supposed to be him, and it's just miscolored.)
* Ravage's cassette mode is labeled "NAME".
* The back cover of issue 3 states profiles are listed from "Optimus Minor" to "Silverbolt" when the volume in fact starts with Onyx Primal.
* Terrorsaur's name is misspelled as "Terrosaur" in his page's header.
* Wolfang's name is misspelled as "Wolfgang" in his page's header and on the back cover. ("Mozart, Maximise!" - Gok)
* The trade paperback version leaves out Galvatron's weakness, and made Break's Primary function "PRIMARY FUNCTION." For God's sake.
* That's right, they got rid of some mistakes but made more. Sheesh.

Omissions
* A glossary similar to that of the final issue of Dreamwave's More Than Meets The Eye was promised by Ben Yee to explain oddities like the inclusion of Moon with the absence of Artemis, but no such index was included.
* The Egg Beasts are notably and intentionally absent from the book, as is McDonald's "the 'Lion Head Optimus Primal' figure". Boo.
* Claw Jaw's bio is also lacking any mention of his "Transmetal" form (which was a pack-in redeco of his original toy and included a Beast Wars video in various European markets).
* Quite a few characters with triple-changer abilities do not have their tertiary mode pictured, though art was often produced.
* Characters who have had multiple bodies, such as Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Blackarachnia, and Megatron, are depicted with an inconsistent mishmash of their respective bodies' modes, with absolutely no profiles managing to include artwork of every mode of each body. This issue was apparently fixed in the trade for everybody (including Cybershark, of all 'bots) except Megatron, who still lacks any post-Season 1 artwork.
(/quote)

Honestly... you can find more accurate (and correct) information about BW characters through Google - hell, even TFwiki is more accurate!!

[King Atlas]

Wow thats a lot of info. So many mistakes, the whole thing seems like a huge waste of time. Thanks gok. Guess its a no for me, though I did like where they were going with the idea....

[autobreadticon]

yo, can you use the robot replica's accessories on the corresponding character deluxe (or voyager) figures.

I saw the barricade rotating wheel and wondered if you could somehow attach it to the deluxe figure, thanks

aii.. any1 have any answers for me?? before the BIGW sale ends

[Autocon]

Wow thats a lot of info. So many mistakes, the whole thing seems like a huge waste of time. Thanks gok. Guess its a no for me, though I did like where they were going with the idea....

dont get the individaul ones!!! the combined one takes alot of errors out

[GoktimusPrime]

Yes but apparently the collected version is still full of lots of uncorrected mistakes and new mistakes! Honestly, save yourself the money and use Google... or post a question here if you want to know anything about Beast Wars.

[dirge]

This thread isn't as purty...